Books by Adriano D'Aloia
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2021, Oct 4, 2021
A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an... more A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void… Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator’s sense of equilibrium. The 'tensive motifs' of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams and offer embodied forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of 'Neurofilmology'—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.
Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo, Roma, 2013
Dalla camminata in precario equilibrio di un funambolo alla passeggiata spaziale di un astronauta... more Dalla camminata in precario equilibrio di un funambolo alla passeggiata spaziale di un astronauta sospeso nello spazio siderale, questo libro offre un vertiginoso percorso nelle forme con cui il cinema contemporaneo coinvolge e sconvolge lo spettatore intensificando le sue percezioni e le sue emozioni. Per la prima volta nell’ambito degli studi sull’esperienza filmica, il paradigma della cognizione incorporata e l’ipotesi della simulazione incarnata vengono adottati per descrivere la relazione dello spettatore con i personaggi e con i mondi della finzione cinematografica, in un serrato dialogo fra teorie del cinema, estetica e neuroscienze cognitive. Acrobazia, caduta, impatto, capovolgimento, deriva sono le cinque tappe di questa esplorazione – quasi un unico movimento che scaturisce dalla capacità del film di attivare la mente e il corpo dello spettatore e che conduce quest’ultimo verso il senso più profondo e umano dell’atto di partecipare empaticamente alle azioni, alle emozioni e ai desideri del personaggio.
Edited by by Adriano D'Aloia
Marsilio, Venezia, 2022
La storia dell’insegnamento e della ricerca nel campo del cinema, della fotografia e della televi... more La storia dell’insegnamento e della ricerca nel campo del cinema, della fotografia e della televisione nell’università italiana corrisponde all’evoluzione di un settore disciplinare che ha progressivamente conquistato una legittimazione scientifica e significativi spazi nei programmi didattici, in costante dialogo con le istituzioni e il mondo delle professioni. In questa vicenda ha avuto e continua ad avere un ruolo decisivo la Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, l’associazione che dal 1990 riunisce le studiose e gli studiosi di media audiovisivi e ne promuove le attività scientifiche e culturali. Questo volume celebra il trentennale della fondazione della CUC ripercorrendone le origini e gli sviluppi, fotografando la situazione attuale e tracciando alcune linee prospettiche per il futuro. Ne emerge un viaggio appassionato nella storia di una comunità in costante crescita, raccontato da una molteplicità di voci e testimonianze capaci di parlare a chiunque ami il cinema e soprattutto a chi sogna di partecipare all’avventura dello studio delle immagini in movimento.
Carocci, Roma, 2022
Tra i media della comunicazione e la moda esiste da sempre un’affinità elettiva. La moda non si l... more Tra i media della comunicazione e la moda esiste da sempre un’affinità elettiva. La moda non si limita a “vestire” i contenuti dei flussi comunicativi; essa è un medium, per la sua capacità di dare forma ai desideri e alle aspirazioni che si agitano sotto la superficie dell’apparenza e animano l’incessante processo di rigenerazione delle pratiche espressive e il mutamento delle infrastrutture comunicative. Adottando diversi approcci teorici e metodologici e focalizzandosi su una molteplicità di oggetti, il volume offre un viaggio nelle relazioni tra la moda e i mezzi di comunicazione del XX e del XXI secolo – fotografia, cinema, televisione, videogioco, fumetto, musica, museo, stampa, internet, social network, tecnologie immersive – e riflette sugli effetti della digitalizzazione e della mediatizzazione della moda nella società contemporanea. Al contempo, propone di integrare due ambiti di studio separati nel paradigma unitario dei fashion media studies , un nuovo approccio disciplinare in grado di disvelare la natura intrinsecamente mediale della moda.
Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 2017
Le immagini in movimento continuano a costellare la nostra vita quotidiana, immersa in una miriad... more Le immagini in movimento continuano a costellare la nostra vita quotidiana, immersa in una miriade di schermi – grandi e piccoli, fissi e mobili, personali e collettivi – e in un flusso ininterrotto di narrazioni audiovisive. Anche i discorsi e le riflessioni sul cinema e sui film non cessano di animare il dibattito culturale contemporaneo coinvolgendo un gran numero di istituzioni (accademiche e non), appassionati di cinema e semplici spettatori. Se, da un lato, i film rappresentano da sempre le tendenze e le tensioni sociali della nostra cultura, dall’altro le teorie del cinema riflettono sempre più l’incontro (e lo scontro) tra differenti visioni del mondo e della conoscenza.
Questa antologia a cura di Adriano D’Aloia e Ruggero Eugeni presenta per la prima volta in italiano i contributi dei più autorevoli e originali rappresentanti dei film studies degli ultimi quindici anni. L’idea di fondo è che la riflessione sul cinema e sull’audiovisivo non si svolga in un perimetro chiuso e invalicabile, ma in aperto dialogo con altre discipline: con la filosofia, intorno al concetto di esperienza; con le scienze sperimentali, a proposito del concetto di organismo; con la teoria dei media, rispetto al concetto di dispositivo.
Un’articolata introduzione e una postfazione intenzionalmente provocatoria permettono al lettore di comprendere “dal vivo” come il pensiero sul cinema, nei suoi rizomatici mutamenti, sia fondamentale per interpretare la complessità dell’esperienza mediale contemporanea.
Contributi di François Albera, Raymond Bellour, Giuliana Bruno, Francesco Casetti, Antonio Damasio, Uri Hasson, Erkki Huhtamo, Friedrich Kittler, Jussi Parikka, Patricia Pisters, Carl Plantinga, Murray Smith, Tim J. Smith, Vivian Sobchack, Maria Tortajada
Kaplan, Torino, 2009
Nel cuore degli anni Trenta Rudolf Arnheim fu tra i principali animatori del dibattito italiano s... more Nel cuore degli anni Trenta Rudolf Arnheim fu tra i principali animatori del dibattito italiano sul cinema. Le tracce di quella fugace ma intensa stagione, segnata da una rocambolesca fuga a causa delle leggi razziali, rischiavano di andare perdute. Questo volume riporta alla luce un consistente corpus di articoli e saggi apparsi sulle più importanti riviste specializzate dell’epoca, a testimonianza del significativo ruolo che Arnheim ebbe nel panorama culturale del nostro paese e dell’importanza che la sua parabola italiana ricoprì nella maturazione del successivo lavoro. Ad emergere è un volto inedito di Arnheim, acuto osservatore della produzione cinematografica internazionale e ponderato divulgatore degli aspetti psicologici e tecnologici dell’arte delle immagini in movimento. Una voce autonoma, originale e diretta che ancora oggi può parlare agli studiosi e agli appassionati di cinema.
Journal Issues by Adriano D'Aloia
Over the past decades, fashion has acquired centrality in social and economic processes for its c... more Over the past decades, fashion has acquired centrality in social and economic processes for its capacity to penetrate and influence both cultural production and identitarian practices. The proliferation of media objects such as fashion films, makeover TV shows, fashion blogs and vlogs has shown how prolific the encounter between fashion and audiovisual media can be. The aim of this special issue is to explore this intersection and, consequently, the cross fertilization between fashion studies and media studies, with particular regard to audiovisual media, such as cinema, television, advertising and digital video. The essays interrogate how the combination of fashion and the moving-image enables us to reflect upon the ubiquitous presence of fashion in our media-saturated landscape, and at the same time upon the ubiquitous presence of media in socio-cultural practices and industrial processes such as fashion. Questioning the encounter between audiovisual media and fashion brings an elective affinity to light. If fashion is central to cinema and television and gives rise to a wide range of new genres and formats, it also impacts on the forms of representation and expression of identity and the body via personal and social media, according to the prevailing customs and tastes of our place and time. This encounter is a terrain of experimentation with new trends in the media experience – ones that rely on performativity and the enhancement of the viewer/user’s agency. After all, audiovisual media are similarly about constructing a fictional (and entertaining) world and actively and creatively inhabiting it as an essential part of the actual world.
Elephant & Castle. Laboratorio dell'immaginario No. 28 (II/2022), 2022
Viviamo ormai nel Mediacene, un’era geologica caratterizzata dall’impatto cruciale delle tecnolog... more Viviamo ormai nel Mediacene, un’era geologica caratterizzata dall’impatto cruciale delle tecnologie di percezione, informazione e trasporto sul contesto storico e ambientale in cui viviamo. Divenuti veri e propri ambienti vitali, i media contemporanei sono regolatori di una sensibilità multimodale da cui dipende la nostra consapevolezza delle sfide e delle insidie della crisi ecologica ormai conclamata. Questo numero offre alcuni spunti di riflessione sullo stato attuale del discorso sull’ecologia mediale, alla ricerca di un nuovo paradigma ecosistemico di descrizione del rapporto tra gli esseri viventi e il pianeta.
*
We now live in the Mediacene, a geological era characterized by the crucial impact of technologies of perception, information and transport on the historical and environmental context in which we live. Having become real living environments, the contemporary media are regulators of a multimodal sensitivity on which our awareness of the challenges and pitfalls of the now full-blown ecological crisis depends. This issue offers some food for thought on the current state of the discourse on media ecology, in search of a new ecosystemic paradigm for describing the relationship between living beings and the planet.
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Nous vivons actuellement dans le Médiacène, une ère géologique caractérisée par l’impact crucial des technologies de la perception, de l’information et des transports sur le contexte historique et environnemental dans lequel nous vivons. Devenus de véritables milieux de vie, les médias contemporains sont les modulateurs d’une sensibilité multimodale dont dépend notre prise de conscience des enjeux et des pièges de la crise écologique désormais manifeste. Ce dossier offre un aperçu de l’état actuel du discours sur l’écologie des médias, à la recherche d’un nouveau paradigme écosystémique pour décrire la relation entre les êtres vivants et la planète.
Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal No. 38/2022, 2022
Recent advancements in the encounter between media studies and the cognitive sciences raises the ... more Recent advancements in the encounter between media studies and the cognitive sciences raises the possibility of re-launching some of the assumptions of Gestalt psychology as productive insights for film theory, analysis, and criticism. ‘Gestalt Filmology’ would be a body of knowledge taking hints from Rudolf Arnheim’s pioneering film theory but anchored in core Gestalt ideas about the multimodal functioning of the senses, motion and ego-perception and resulting filmic expressiveness and symbolism. Elaborated in this way, a Gestalt Filmology might be able to offer suggestions and correctives to an ‘embodied cognition’ and ‘neurofilmological’ approach in visual media studies. This special issue of Cinéma & Cie connects together elements of Arnheim’s thought from different periods of his career. It bolsters Arnheimian ideas with research strains from general gestalt-theoretical psychology, and it brings elements of those same Gestalt-theoretical traditions to parts of film theory that Arnheim never touched.
Imago. Studi di cinema e media No. 22/2020, 2021
In which aspects and to what extent can one regard as “narrative” the spatial experience provided... more In which aspects and to what extent can one regard as “narrative” the spatial experience provided by a museum route, a urban building, a multimedia interactive environment, or an immersive videogame? Under which conditions may spatiality be constitutive of a narratively organized interactive experience? What are the relationships between a represented pictorial space and a designed material space, when their narrative roles are taken into account? And what are the socio-cultural or political implications of the mediated interactions between individuals and environments?
Taken together, the possible answers to such questions allow us to grasp some specific features of contemporary media experience, which is broadly characterized by a special emphasis on the articulations between bodily interactions, spatial constructs, and technological innervations. At the same time, the distinctive features of contemporary media experience – irrespective of whether they take place in everyday, entertainment or artistic environments – allow us to rethink on a general theoretical level issues of narrativity, interaction, or immersion.
This special section of Imago (No. 22/2021) aims at investigating the narrative configurations which emerge from the interaction between bodies, spaces, and technologies in contemporary media experiences. More specifically, it addresses the projects which prefocus and orient those experiences, and the forms they assume depending on the medium which is taken under consideration.
VR Storytelling
Cinergie. Il cinema e le altre arti No. 19/2021, Aug 4, 2021
The monographic section of this issue of Cinergie arises from a need that has becoming increasing... more The monographic section of this issue of Cinergie arises from a need that has becoming increasingly acute in the past few years, namely that of closely examining the modes, practices, strategies, and forms of storytelling used in the various forms and experiences of Virtual Reality (VR) entertainment.
The question that we asked ourselves, and thus also the field of analysis that we wanted to open focuses primarily on two elements: first, on if and how cinematic narration can exist in VR; second, on what paths the development of a form of storytelling not directly tied to cinematic language might take.
Comunicazioni Sociali. Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies No. 1/2017, 2017
Over the past decades, fashion has acquired centrality in social and economic processes for its c... more Over the past decades, fashion has acquired centrality in social and economic processes for its capacity to penetrate and influence both cultural production and identitarian practices. The proliferation of media objects such as fashion films, makeover TV shows, fashion blogs and vlogs has shown how prolific the encounter between fashion and audiovisual media can be. The aim of this special issue is to explore this intersection and, consequently, the cross fertilization between fashion studies and media studies, with particular regard to audiovisual media, such as cinema, television, advertising and digital video. The essays interrogate how the combination of fashion and the moving-image enables us to reflect upon the ubiquitous presence of fashion in our media-saturated landscape, and at the same time upon the ubiquitous presence of media in socio-cultural practices and industrial processes such as fashion. Questioning the encounter between audiovisual media and fashion brings an elective affinity to light. If fashion is central to cinema and television and gives rise to a wide range of new genres and formats, it also impacts on the forms of representation and expression of identity and the body via personal and social media, according to the prevailing customs and tastes of our place and time. This encounter is a terrain of experimentation with new trends in the media experience – ones that rely on performativity and the enhancement of the viewer/user’s agency. After all, audiovisual media are similarly about constructing a fictional (and entertaining) world and actively and creatively inhabiting it as an essential part of the actual world.
Comunicazioni Sociali. Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies No. 1/2016, 2016
For a long time, the study of photography has been a part of Art studies or a mere object of phil... more For a long time, the study of photography has been a part of Art studies or a mere object of philosophical investigations. Yet, after the advent of digital technologies it progressively became central in Media and Communication studies. From the 2000s onwards, various social and technological events made photography more accessible, ubiquitous, public, cheap, democratic, immediate and shared than ever before, paving the way to a renewal of photographic experience. New objects, formats, devices, practices and uses emerged as specific traits of a ‘performative’ photographic agency. This emergence is allowed by the fact that photography, despite being one of the most ancient media, still shapes our lives, empowers our biological vision, and enhances our imaginative visual practices. The editors of this issue, Adriano D’Aloia and Francesco Parisi, propose the term ‘snapshot culture’ to refer to the combination of technological, aesthetic and practical shifts in contemporary photographic experience. Snapshot culture is characterized by a twofold dynamic: the persistence of the original traits of the photographic experience as it emerged and developed, coupled with the modulation of new opportunities offered by technological improvements and social changes. Indeed, the digitalization of photographic aesthetics and related media practices provides an ideal case for studying some of the most challenging developments in visual media aesthetics within the broader landscape of the post-medium condition and for reflecting on how photography theory has responded to such challenges in the post-theory era. This special issue offers a critical investigation of photography’s ‘persistence’ in the media experience through both an analysis of concrete objects and phenomena (e.g. selfies, animated GIFs, social networking, computational photography) and the refinement of theoretical approaches to photography.
Cinéma & Cie. International Film Studies Journal No. 22-23, Spring/Fall 2014, 2015
Over the last two decades, discoveries made in the field of cognitive neuroscience have begun to ... more Over the last two decades, discoveries made in the field of cognitive neuroscience have begun to permeate humanities and social sciences. This special issue of Cinéma&Cie focuses on major conceptual and epistemological arguments arising from the dialogue between audiovisual studies and neurosciences. In the context of this intersection, Neurofilmology is an interdisciplinary research program that arises at the encounter between two models of viewer: the viewer-as-mind (deriving from a cognitive/ analytical approach) and the viewer-as-body (typical of the phenomenological/continental approach). Accordingly, Neurofilmology focuses on the viewer-as-organism, by investigating with both empirical and speculative epistemological tools the subject of audiovisual experience, postulated as embodied, embedded, enacted, extended, emerging, affective, and relational.
Translations by Adriano D'Aloia
In che modo la scienza può contribuire ad arricchire l’analisi dell’esperienza della visione di u... more In che modo la scienza può contribuire ad arricchire l’analisi dell’esperienza della visione di un film? Fino a che punto è possibile spingersi nella cooperazione tra le discipline umanistiche e le scienze naturali e sociali? Quali sono i vantaggi e i rischi di tale interazione?
Come reagire e rispondere allo scetticismo che aleggia attorno a questa proposta?
Fra ardite manovre teoriche e approfondite analisi di film classici e contemporanei, Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze cerca coraggiosamente di rispondere a queste domande e delinea un nuovo modo di concepire il coinvolgimento dello spettatore cinematografico. Se vedere un film è sperimentare la vita in una forma più intensa, questo libro dimostra come un’estetica naturalizzata del cinema possa aiutarci a comprendere il desiderio di abitare i mondi della finzione e della narrazione audiovisiva a partire dallo studio della nostra natura umana.
Olivares, Milano, 2008
“Gran parte dei nuovi media sono stati pensati partendo da una metafora cinematografica: in essi,... more “Gran parte dei nuovi media sono stati pensati partendo da una metafora cinematografica: in essi, una certa idea di cinema continua ad esistere”, sostiene David N. Rodowick in questo volume che analizza il destino del cinema e il ruolo dei film studies nella cultura estetica e visuale del XXI secolo. Il cinema ricopre, secondo Rodowick, una posizione decisiva nella genealogia delle arti del virtuale, mentre il film sta scomparendo, il cinema persiste – per lo meno nelle forme narrative immaginate da Hollywood a partire dal 1915. Vedere un film sta diventando un anacronismo poiché ogni aspetto del produrre e vedere film è sempre più digitale. Come può la teoria dl cinema reagire al terremoto digitale che ha messo in crisi la stessa natura del film? In questo mutato scenario, cosa accadrà al cinema e agli studi sul cinema? Questo libro, il primo pubblicato in Italia dell’eminente studioso anglosassone, chiarisce come le tecnologie digitali confermino il cinema come cultura audiovisiva matura del XX secolo e come stiano preparando il terreno a una nuova cultura audiovisiva i cui tratti sono ancora indistinti.
Essays by Adriano D'Aloia
Cognitive Science, 2021
The present study examined whether cinematographic editing density affects viewers’ perception of... more The present study examined whether cinematographic editing density affects viewers’ perception of time. As a second aim, based on embodied models that conceive time perception as strictly connected to the movement, we tested the hypothesis that the editing density of moving images also affects viewers’ eye movements and that these latter mediate the effect of editing density on viewers’ temporal judgments. Seventy participants watched nine video-clips edited by manipulating the number of cuts (slow- and fast-paced editing against a master shot, unedited condition). For each editing density, multiple video-clips were created, representing three different kinds of routine actions. The participants’ eye movements were recorded while watching the video, and the participants were asked to report duration judgments and subjective passage of time judgments after watching each clip. The results showed that participants subjectively perceived that time flew more while watching fast-paced edited videos than slow-paced or unedited videos; by contrast, concerning duration judgments, participants overestimated the duration of fast-paced videos compared to the master-shot videos. Both the slow- and the fast-paced editing generated shorter fixations than the master-shot, and the fast-paced editing led to shorter fixations than the slow-paced editing. Finally, compared to the unedited condition, editing led to an overestimation of durations through increased eye mobility. These findings suggest that the editing density of moving images by increasing the number of cuts effectively altered viewers’ experience of time and add further evidence to prior research showing that performed eye movement is associated with temporal judgments.
Interactive cinema is one of the most interesting areas of experimentation with storytelling form... more Interactive cinema is one of the most interesting areas of experimentation with storytelling form. "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch" (2018), a stand-alone episode of the acclaimed British television series available on Netflix, has restarted the debate around this genre. This article offers a discussion of several critical elements inherent to the experience of viewing "Bandersnatch," specifically those related to its interactive, meta-reflexive, and ludic nature. The tensions between interactive and interpretative cooperation, between actuality and virtuality, between self-reflexivity and self-referentiality, between free choice and control, between co-authorship and authority, and between gaming and gambling, bring out the contradictions of a product characteristic of the current transmedial landscape.
Virtual Reality revolutionizes the classic relationship between the cinematic spectator, the scre... more Virtual Reality revolutionizes the classic relationship between the cinematic spectator, the screen and the film theatre, and reformulates the relationship between corporeality, technology and environment in order to offer immersive and multi-sensory experiences for educational, curative, sports and entertainment purposes. The article provides an analysis of some recent underwater virtual reality systems or prototypes that use the natural element of water (with its symbolism and its aesthetic qualities) as a virtual setting for marine explorations or as a material substance in which they immerse the spectator physically. The analysis allows reflecting on the bodily and multisensory nature of the audiovisual experience.
Lo spettatore di un film o di una serie tv tende a segmentare gli eventi narrativi in base a un “... more Lo spettatore di un film o di una serie tv tende a segmentare gli eventi narrativi in base a un “montaggio mentale” che non necessariamente corrisponde al montaggio audiovisivo. L’analisi di due episodi stilisticamente opposti della serie televisiva "True Detective" rivela la tendenza naturale dello spettatore a compensare – direttamente o inversamente – l’intensità del montaggio al fine di assicurare la comprensione narrativa. Al contempo l’analisi fa emergere la necessità di integrare alla Event Segmentation Theory un approccio “enattivo” che la natura incorporata del montaggio e la matrice corporea dell’esperienza filmica.
The film or TV series spectator tends to segment the narrative events on the basis of a “mental montage” that does not necessarily correspond to the audiovisual editing. The analysis of two (stylistically opposite) episodes of "True Detective" reveals the spectator’s natural tendency to compensate – directly or inversely – the intensity of audiovisual editing for the purpose of narrative understanding. At the same time, the analysis highlights the need to integrate an “enactive” approach to the Event Segmentation Theory – one that enhances the bodily nature of the filmic experience the embodied nature of audiovisual editing.
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Books by Adriano D'Aloia
Edited by by Adriano D'Aloia
Questa antologia a cura di Adriano D’Aloia e Ruggero Eugeni presenta per la prima volta in italiano i contributi dei più autorevoli e originali rappresentanti dei film studies degli ultimi quindici anni. L’idea di fondo è che la riflessione sul cinema e sull’audiovisivo non si svolga in un perimetro chiuso e invalicabile, ma in aperto dialogo con altre discipline: con la filosofia, intorno al concetto di esperienza; con le scienze sperimentali, a proposito del concetto di organismo; con la teoria dei media, rispetto al concetto di dispositivo.
Un’articolata introduzione e una postfazione intenzionalmente provocatoria permettono al lettore di comprendere “dal vivo” come il pensiero sul cinema, nei suoi rizomatici mutamenti, sia fondamentale per interpretare la complessità dell’esperienza mediale contemporanea.
Contributi di François Albera, Raymond Bellour, Giuliana Bruno, Francesco Casetti, Antonio Damasio, Uri Hasson, Erkki Huhtamo, Friedrich Kittler, Jussi Parikka, Patricia Pisters, Carl Plantinga, Murray Smith, Tim J. Smith, Vivian Sobchack, Maria Tortajada
Journal Issues by Adriano D'Aloia
*
We now live in the Mediacene, a geological era characterized by the crucial impact of technologies of perception, information and transport on the historical and environmental context in which we live. Having become real living environments, the contemporary media are regulators of a multimodal sensitivity on which our awareness of the challenges and pitfalls of the now full-blown ecological crisis depends. This issue offers some food for thought on the current state of the discourse on media ecology, in search of a new ecosystemic paradigm for describing the relationship between living beings and the planet.
*
Nous vivons actuellement dans le Médiacène, une ère géologique caractérisée par l’impact crucial des technologies de la perception, de l’information et des transports sur le contexte historique et environnemental dans lequel nous vivons. Devenus de véritables milieux de vie, les médias contemporains sont les modulateurs d’une sensibilité multimodale dont dépend notre prise de conscience des enjeux et des pièges de la crise écologique désormais manifeste. Ce dossier offre un aperçu de l’état actuel du discours sur l’écologie des médias, à la recherche d’un nouveau paradigme écosystémique pour décrire la relation entre les êtres vivants et la planète.
Taken together, the possible answers to such questions allow us to grasp some specific features of contemporary media experience, which is broadly characterized by a special emphasis on the articulations between bodily interactions, spatial constructs, and technological innervations. At the same time, the distinctive features of contemporary media experience – irrespective of whether they take place in everyday, entertainment or artistic environments – allow us to rethink on a general theoretical level issues of narrativity, interaction, or immersion.
This special section of Imago (No. 22/2021) aims at investigating the narrative configurations which emerge from the interaction between bodies, spaces, and technologies in contemporary media experiences. More specifically, it addresses the projects which prefocus and orient those experiences, and the forms they assume depending on the medium which is taken under consideration.
The question that we asked ourselves, and thus also the field of analysis that we wanted to open focuses primarily on two elements: first, on if and how cinematic narration can exist in VR; second, on what paths the development of a form of storytelling not directly tied to cinematic language might take.
Translations by Adriano D'Aloia
Come reagire e rispondere allo scetticismo che aleggia attorno a questa proposta?
Fra ardite manovre teoriche e approfondite analisi di film classici e contemporanei, Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze cerca coraggiosamente di rispondere a queste domande e delinea un nuovo modo di concepire il coinvolgimento dello spettatore cinematografico. Se vedere un film è sperimentare la vita in una forma più intensa, questo libro dimostra come un’estetica naturalizzata del cinema possa aiutarci a comprendere il desiderio di abitare i mondi della finzione e della narrazione audiovisiva a partire dallo studio della nostra natura umana.
Essays by Adriano D'Aloia
The film or TV series spectator tends to segment the narrative events on the basis of a “mental montage” that does not necessarily correspond to the audiovisual editing. The analysis of two (stylistically opposite) episodes of "True Detective" reveals the spectator’s natural tendency to compensate – directly or inversely – the intensity of audiovisual editing for the purpose of narrative understanding. At the same time, the analysis highlights the need to integrate an “enactive” approach to the Event Segmentation Theory – one that enhances the bodily nature of the filmic experience the embodied nature of audiovisual editing.